Thread: Canadian to assume leading role in Iraq war

March 08, 2004

'This Is a Dangerous Theatre'

BRIG.-GEN. WALTER NATYNCZYK: a senior Canadian soldier, seconded to the U.S. army, discusses serving in Iraq

OTTAWA'S decision not to join George W. Bush's coalition of the willing in the U.S.-led war in Iraq last March has led to frayed relations with Washington. That's despite Canada's contribution to the war on terror: the 2,000 troops in Afghanistan, the largest contingent of the 5,000-strong, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force based in Kabul. And, as it turns out, Canadians have served in Iraq -- while on exchange programs with American and British forces. That's currently the case with Brig.-Gen. Walter Natynczyk, a 28-year veteran of the armed forces who is the most senior of the dozens of Canadians deployed in Iraq to date. Since July 2002, Natynczyk, accompanied by his wife and one of his three children, had been seconded to the U.S. army's III Corps in Fort Hood, Texas. (The couple's other two kids are attending school in Canada.) While in Texas, the Winnipeg native, an armour expert whose regiment is the Royal Canadian Dragoons, served as deputy commander. When III Corps began shipping out to Iraq in January, Natynczyk, 46, was part of the troop rotation. He is now based in one of Saddam Hussein's former presidential palaces in Baghdad, where he is the coalition's deputy chief of policy, strategy and planning, helping direct the movements of U.S., British and Australian troops. Natynczyk spoke with Maclean's correspondent Scott Taylor in Baghdad about the U.S. army, the conflict in Iraq and the role he is playing.




One of your duties as deputy commander of III Corps was training. Pre-deployment, how much time was spent on the lessons learned on the ground here?

Quite a lot. It was a really novel approach where the senior leaders flew to Jordan to the Jordanian Peace-keeping Institute, kind of akin to the Pearson centre in Nova Scotia. We participated in cultural awareness and stability operations lessons.

The newly arrived soldiers have watched the news and know that Americans are not being greeted as liberators. Mentally, how do you train them coming in here?

I think that the American soldier is really well trained. Their ability to turn over lessons learned from Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo and other theatres and put them into their techniques and procedures is very impressive. I'm also impressed to see the number of people who have combat patches, so they are ready for the low-intensity fight, they are ready for the high-intensity fight. The American army has also gone to the U.K. army to learn as many lessons as possible from them. There's a lot of sharing of all kinds of experiences.

The problem is that this is an unconventional war being fought by conventional fighters. I applaud the leadership for trying to give these young soldiers as much depth and breadth of experience as they have.

The U.S. is consolidating a number of bases in Baghdad, reducing the footprint of the American military. Is that for military or political reasons?

All I can say is that it's really important that we grow the Iraqi security forces, whether they are police, civil defence or the new Iraqi army. We've gone through a lot of training with these people, but at some point you've got to back away. In the end, the issue is handing sovereignty back to the Iraqis and allowing those maturing security forces to take the helm.

But without the body armour, the heavy weapons, they're considered soft targets.

This is a dangerous theatre, there's no doubt about that.

When it was announced in November that you would be here, opposition parties in Ottawa objected, questioning how Canada could oppose the war yet deploy a senior officer. How do you feel about that?

I take orders from the Canadian government. The Canadian government sent me to Fort Hood, bottom line, to show in a tangible way the close affiliation between the U.S. and Canada. The Canadian government approved my deployment, so from my perspective there was no controversy. The instructions to me were clear: "move out" -- and as a soldier I complied.

Still, you have to operate under something of a dual command. Does that make it difficult to function here?

I answer to the [Canadian] deputy chief of defence staff and through him to the chief of defence staff. Whether I'm here or in Bosnia, Afghanistan or wherever, he maintains full national command of me. In this environment, I'm under the operational control of the III Corps commander. At the end of the day, there's a hierarchy of command. But I've been given pretty clear guidance to soldier on.

Personally, do you feel the intervention was justified?

That's way above my pay scale to speculate. But I am incredibly impressed by this country and its potential for the future. What I can say is that I believe we're making a contribution. There's a heck of a lot of people who will have a better life and a better future because of what we're doing here today.



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http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/qa...08_76768_76768

Afghanistan has never been captured by anyone. I second that. There is no entity called Afghanistan as such. Its a whole lot of tribal groups and sub groups with totally divergent views with fierce tribal loyalties etc. Awfully difficult to organise them into any semblance of order.

That is the greatest challenge.

Sunday » March 7 » 2004

Canada to send squadron, infantry company to Afghanistan in August

STEPHEN THORNE
Canadian Press


Sunday, March 07, 2004

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada is planning to send a mechanized reconnaissance squadron to Afghanistan when the current battalion group finishes its tour in August, sources have told The Canadian Press.

The plan is to deploy a Coyote squadron from Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) and a company of infantry soldiers from 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Both are based in Edmonton.

One would be attached to the existing International Security Assistance Force in Kabul while the other would be deployed to a so-called provincial reconstruction team elsewhere in the country, highly placed military sources said.

The plan could change, but the commitment will match or exceed the 500 troops Prime Minister Paul Martin has said would be the maximum Canada could spare.

Defence Minister David Pratt would not confirm the deployment plans in an interview, but said he will be meeting with NATO allies in the coming days and expects to make an announcement within two weeks.

"We're going to be in a position to make an announcement within the next couple of weeks on the future commitment in Afghanistan," Pratt said.

"We'll confirm precisely what we've got in mind when the time comes, after we've done all of the necessary consultations and we have a better sense of what our allies are going to be doing."

Pratt said Canada has been in consultations with NATO members in recent weeks and will be taking part in another key meeting this week, the results of which may dictate the direction Canada takes in Afghanistan next August.

NATO countries have not exactly been surging forward with offers to fill the void left when Canada withdraws its 2,100 soldiers from the 5,400-strong NATO force based in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Canadian officials have been looking at potential sites for a provincial reconstruction team, but sources say the decision to go that route may come later.

On Friday, Pratt announced about 425 soldiers and helicopter crew would be deployed to Haiti over the next three weeks for a 90-day UN mission.

The minister said the $38-million deployment will in no way affect future missions in Afghanistan.

The core of the deployment - 160 riflemen from 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment in Gagetown, N.B. - is not attached to any brigade group, Pratt said, so it won't further stretch from the military's already strained rotations.

He said it also won't affect the respite the Forces have been counting on in the fall, after Canada's long-term commitment to Bosnia is over.

"This was the best option with respect to the speed with which we could get into theatre and the level of training that the 2RCR already had," Pratt said.

"In a certain sense, we were very, very fortunate because not only was the 2RCR the immediate reaction unit for the Atlantic area, but they were already trained up on non-combatant evacuation."

Pratt said the number of soldiers who are out of the mix because of so-called operational waivers - meaning they've been deployed overseas within the last year, rendering them undeployable - will account for less than 10 per cent of the military by fall.

A significant number of troops have waived their rights to one year off between overseas missions, he added.

The chief of defence staff, Gen. Ray Henault, said last fall the military needs an 18-month reprieve from major overseas commitments to regenerate its force.

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To comment on the ISAF, its capabilities and it constant rethinking of organisation and approach requires more depth than what meets the eye.

While I don't claim to be the last word in Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorist Operations, I can say this much that in my 35 years of service I have seen insurgents, terrorists and have combated insurgency, practically from Day 1 and in all types of terrain, some equally harsh or even worse than Afghanistan.

The main problem with counter insurgency operations or peace keeping/ peace enforcement operations is that the insurgent/ guerrilla are 'invisible'. They look the same as any other civilian. They all wear clothes are loose fitting and are such that small calibre weapons or grenades can be kept under the cloak like apparel. Therefore, either one treats every civilian as a guerrilla and start bashing them up [and thus alienating the population which become more sympathetic to the guerrillas and thus compounding the problem] or one shows restrain. If the population gets hostile,[without expressing so outwardly, the situation becomes even worse. If one shows restraint, then there is also a good chance of being shot up or blown sky high with weapons hidden below the cloak. It's an awful situation to be. The situation is worse for the ISAF. I operated in my country; the ISAF is operating far from its shores and logistical backup. I could communicate; the ISAF doesn't know the local language! Translators can be double agents!

The terrain and the winding roads [both within and without the urban areas] are ideal for ambushes. The garbage dumps and piles of stone can be ideal for Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that blows up vehicles and men. A 24 hour vigil over roads that have been searched for mines, IEDs and then picquetted can still spring surprises! In short it is a mug's game.

The only way is to solve the issue is to raze the complete country. But that is no answer. The answer is to win the 'hearts and minds of people'. Another difficult task. It requires finances and resources even more than what is required to run one's own country. Then, whatever you construct to help the population, the terrorists will blow that up too!

Afghanistan is worse. It is no country. It is an amalgam of tribal fiefdoms with fiercely independent tribal governance organisations and private armies. Something like the medieval times where the fief lords maintained their identity and rendered service when called upon. That is possibly the reason why the ISAF wants to go for the garrison concept. So long as the garrisons are strong in defence and has the capability to launch forays it will be fine. However, that there will be no attacks on the garrison cannot be ruled out.

While we concentrate on secondary issues like 'liberation' of women and all that with cosmetic value like condemning the wearing of 'chador' or having an NGO which is teaching Afghani women the finer points of beauty care, we seem to be missing the woods for the tree. What is required is modern scientific education and not the madrassa form which is decadent and obscurantist. Modern education will open up greater horizons than the narrow confines of the scriptures, even if such scriptures are appealing to the followers. The power to analyse the scriptures with the modern environment and demands of the contemporary world and societal well being will dawn.

Likewise, as the internet has closed the gap in comprehension of the 'other world' as indeed is this forum, Afghanistan requires a robust communication with interconnectivity roads. It requires industries so that people migrate and see the other parts of their country and interact. There will be strife and new problems but there will be a learning of 'tolerance to ambiguity'.

Then and then alone will the current problem of Afghanistan abate to some extent.


One must take a leaf from the British. They not only divide the Indian population into warring religious divides, Macaulay also divided each community into those who became Westernised Oriental Gentlemen or WOGs and the others! Obviously, the Westernised Oriental Gentlemen won! Nehru is an ideal example.

Originally posted by Praxus
These Taliban and Al Quada Forces in Afghanistan have to be one of the most incompitant forces on the planet. They can't even take on something the size of a Platoon let a lone be destructive enough to throw us out.

OE I think you give the bad guys too much credit.

I just want to say one thing, im not wishing that we lose, im just stating a fact. The Russian casulties in Afghanistan and the Mujadieen attacks (sp) dident start mounting till the mid 1980's, over 5 years after the 1979 invasion. Weve only been in Afghanistan for 3 years. And the majority of the US and allied troops in Afganistan are special forces, and the training level of the average Russian soldier was nowhere near that of a US special forces operative.